Record Companies

I recently bought a box set of John Coltrane material listed on Amazon as “The Complete Impulse Studio Recordings”, however it turned out that the correct title was “The Classic Quartet - The Complete Impulse Studio Recordings”. What this means is that the later Impulse recordings, which added Pharoah Sanders and Alice Coltrane, were not included and the later period was actually of most interest to me. I didn't mind, because I hadn't been short changed by this 8 cd set, and this is a great collection of albums. I thought I would just have to look out for the other box set covering the later years. As I have already bought a few Miles Davis sets I know that it is sensible to split these collections, and having looked a bit further there is probably another 5/6 cds worth of Coltrane material, great. Except there is no other box set, this set was released in 1998 and since then Impulse have just ignored the rest. Most of the albums are available, but some are only available on import or second hand. I also discovered that shortly after the original release of this box set Impulse found new material, but didn't add it to the set, but have released it on reissues of the original albums, so if I did want the extra material I would have to get a duplicate of the album I already have in the box set. Another disappointment for me was the partial albums included, Kulu Se Mama has the title track missing, because it was not recorded by the Classic Quartet. I already have this on vinyl, so do I buy it again on CD? “Live at Birdland” is a mixture of live and studio recordings, I now have the studio recordings so I thought I would pop on to iTunes to get the live tracks, except iTunes won't let you but these tracks separately, I have to purchase the whole album and therefore pay for duplicate tracks. Luckily “Impressions”, which is also a mixture of live and studio recordings, used live tracks from The Village Vanguard and Impulse have released the complete recordings from those nights.

I would also like to replace my collection of 1970s Temptations albums which were produced by Norman Whitfield. These are great albums and I miss them, I would be willing to repay something to get them. So I looked on Amazon, I looked on iTunes and I looked on the Motown website. I discovered that not all of these albums have been re-released on CD, but worse, some that were re-released have had the tracks edited. However what really irritates me is the 20 something greatest hits albums that have been released instead.

Last year I bought the Complete Stevie Wonder on iTunes, and this was a genuine complete set. So why do Motown not do this for their other artists? Why do Impulse release only one box set and not see it through. I have heard that Sony/Columbia are delaying the final Miles Davis box sets, all very odd. Surely there is some value in making available a product for me to buy, perhaps if record companies stopped worrying about illegal downloads and got on with there job then people wouldn't go to illegal download sites in the first place. I can understand that record companies will have a priority list, but surely that would include John Coltrane and wouldn't include hundreds of greatest hits collections.